Counting Stars

One: The Roof

Lidia already has the jumbled wad of bills in her hand, counting her earnings before Harry is even in sight. Rounding the corner of a retail building and coming out of an alleyway like a local garbage rat, is when he finally spots her. Usually, he wouldn't be out on the curb, desperately whipping his untamed and untrimmed curls around in both directions every few seconds to see if she was back yet, but tonight she's more than ten minutes late.

All his pent up anger flows right to his feet as he tromps his way down the sidewalk toward her, ignoring glances from other pedestrians who don't quite look like he does. They all took showers this morning, did their hair nicely, and put on their best outfits for a night on the town. Meanwhile, Harry takes angry strides toward his partner in crime, the only other person on the street who matches him.

It isn't so blatantly obvious that people aggressively avoid them, but upon looking closely, you can definitely see the dirty skin masked as a tan and the tangled, greasy hair they both tended to cover under a hood. But, really, it's their clothes. Stains and holes and all, they look like they'd been living in them for far too long. That's what really cues people into the fact that Lidia Hendrix and Harry Styles are, in fact, homeless.

He adjusts his raggedy guitar case on his shoulder, fighting for position with his overstuffed backpack, and steps up to Lidia, immediately clamping his hand down over hers to hide the money she's showing off to the entire sidewalk. That's just how it went with them. Harry never wanted to risk loosing money and Lidia couldn't care less. She knew they needed it, and always pulled her own weight, but she didn't stress about it like he often did.

"What're you doing? Put that away." He shoves her hands toward the front pocket of her jeans where she stuffs the bills back in and rolls her eyes at him while he's glancing around nervously.

"Calm down, Harry."

"How'd you even get all that?"

She smirks up at him and it's then that he sees a white stain on her bottom lip, like dried milk if he didn't know any better. "Guess I'm just better than you."

He licks his thumb first before rubbing it against the crud on her lip and she knows she's been caught. She hides behind her eyelashes like a dog ready to apologize for being bad. "I told you not to do that stuff."

She huffs out a defeated breath and pushes his hand away from her face, "It's not so easy when you don't have any talent, H."

"You do fine without..." He winces even thinking about what she put herself through in order to get the money in her pocket, his reaction owed to the fact that he, too, had been there. It wasn't fun and he hated thinking of her doing it too.

"Not really." She starts walking in the direction he'd come from as he easily fell into pace beside her. It's a typical Monday night in the city. Not too busy, but the tourists and the college students are out getting dinner and shopping. Harry always had the best luck with tourists. So, while he loitered the main areas, Lidia slipped off to the grungy bits of the city where she could find men who were desperate enough to pay for it.

"Well, you don't have to. I make almost enough for us." He flings his arm around her shoulder as they walk, both of them already set in their routines that they no longer have to confirm with one another where they are going.

"I want to get new clothes." Now Harry's the one rolling his eyes at her because he knows for a fact she has more than enough clothes in her backpack. Sure, they aren't the best, but they work for them.

"Why?"

If there's one thing she learned about living on the streets with another person it's that there isn't any room to be embarrassed. There is no shame in their situation. They've both seen each other at their worst, and so what she says next comes out with no hesitation at all. "All of my shirts smell like B.O. and all of my pants smell like ass, Harry, that's why."